Today is the 43rd Earth Day. Unless you live in Ecotopia or Cloudcuckooland you probably didn’t notice, as the artificial holiday still hasn’t gained much traction with middle America, despite decades of progressive attempts to turn it into our pre-eminent annual holy day.

Jon’s list is making the rounds — deservedly so — and merits spreading far and wide. To that end, the Tatler presents:

The 13 Worst Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” — New York Times editorial

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich

“Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter

“In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” — Life magazine

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

“[One] theory assumes that the earth’s cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun’s heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” — Newsweek magazine

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt

And for dessert, here’s George Carlin’s utterly devastating classic rant about Earth Day and the hubris of the environmental movement:

If folks are going to make a pagan religion out of all this, coudn't they at least celebrate Earth Day with giant nekkid orgies? All we get these days from these noobs is that "Burning Man" thing in the frikkin' desert.

Don't forget that one of the founders of Earth Day, is Ira Einhorn, better known as the "the Unicorn Killer". He killed his girlfriend stuck her in a trunk and her body wasn't found for over a year. He then fled justice for over 25 years, living in France in a fancy estate. They knew where he was as he thumbed his nose at prosecutors and the victims family as they tried to get him sent back home to go to prison. A real dirt bag, at least he is finally locked up.

If folks are going to make a pagan religion out of all this, coudn't they at least celebrate Earth Day with giant nekkid orgies? All we get these days from these noobs is that "Burning Man" thing in the frikkin' desert.

"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa."

I remember a conversation I had with a gentleman originally from India about 20 years back. We were talking about something or another and I mentioned that in my childhood, we'd often been admonished to eat everything our plates because there were people starving in India. We laughed because we both knew that India had been a net exporter of food for many years at that point.

But stereotypes take a very long time to die. I still regularly see remarks to the effect that all _contemporary_ Germans are Nazis, almost 70 years after Hitler died and Germans moved on to other ideologies, especially the welfare state. I imagine there are still people who think black people have tails too.